This new version contains one more encoding issue that should fix garbled characters in some Latin character sets. Please let us know if you find any web sites containing characters that screen-scraper incorrectly renders as boxes or question marks. Aside from that, we’ve implemented a new HTML rendering engine, which, while still not perfect, seems to do a much better job than the previous one. This new rendering engine requires, however, that you upgrade to this version in a slightly different way, so please carefully follow the instructions you’ll find below.
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates, then follow these steps:
- After downloading and installing the update via “Check for updates”, launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- Open the “Settings” dialog box by clicking on the wrench icon in the button bar.
- Click inside one of the text boxes (it doesn’t matter which) to give it focus.
- Close the “Settings” dialog box. This causes certain properties files to be re-written with a new property related to the new HTML renderer.
- Close the workbench.
- Launch the workbench again.
If you’re upgrading from anything prior to version 2.7.2.9a, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.22a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Follow steps 2 through 4 in the upgrade instructions above this one (the instructions corresponding to upgrading from version 2.7.2.9a or higher).
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!